Matthew Barclay, Saxon Bird and Robert Gatenby all died while competing at national surf championship events on the Gold Coast. Their deaths occurred in different years but at the same beach, and all in heavy surf conditions. Were their deaths preventable? Did Surf Life Saving Australia fail in its duty of care? There’s grief, anger and calls for a Royal Commission. Reporter: Wendy Carlisle(This program originally went to air on the 13th May 2012.)

UPDATE: Since this story originally went to air, Surf Lifesaving Australia have moved next year's national surf championships to North Kirra Beach.

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Transcript

Jonathan Green: In March, a 14-year-old Nipper from Maroochydore, Matthew Barclay, became the third teenager to drown during an Australian Surf Life Saving championship event. All three boys, Matthew Barclay, Saxon Bird and Robert Gatenby perished at the same beach and in dangerous surf conditions where concerns had been expressed for the safety of competitors. There’s a growing view in surf lifesaving community that the deaths were preventable and there’s a push for a royal commission. Wendy Carlisle investigates for Background Briefing.

Newsreader (archival): Tonight, another teenage surf lifesaver missing during a contest in heavy seas on the Gold Coast.

Brent Williamson (archival): At this stage, our thoughts and prayers are obviously with the family and the broader surf lifesaving membership.

Wendy Carlisle: Matthew Barclay had been competing in the semis of the surf paddle. Some time during the race, he was struck on the head by either a stray board or a paddle and lost consciousness. And despite the best efforts of a fellow competitor to hold on to him, he disappeared. For the third time in 16 years, the surf lifesaving fraternity was mourning the loss of a competitor.

In 1996, Robert Gatenby was killed, and then two years ago, Saxon Bird. And now, Matthew Barclay.

Ralph Devlin: He was a beautiful boy. He was intelligent, unassuming, set high standards for himself even as a young fellow and he’s just been a fine upstanding young member. And I guess the comfort we take is that now Matty Barclay is frozen in time. He’s frozen in time as a 14-year-old, beautiful young boy.

Tim Ryan (archival): Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for attending this morning. That concludes the ecumenical and memorial service here at Kurrawa. We, as a family, will stay together and we will work together to ensure that we do move forward and continue to save lives. So thank you, one and all, for being with us this morning. I know the Barclay family appreciate it, as Steve has already said. As the president has said, we are one big family and let’s go forward and do what we do…

Wendy Carlisle: By the time the beach eulogy for Matthew Barclay had finished, many people on the beach were asking themselves: how on earth did this happen again? It’s the same question Michael Gatenby was asking. In 1996, his brother Robert had been killed and now, watching the new coverage, he felt he’d heard it all before.

Michael Gatenby: The comments made by surf lifesaving officials seemed very similar between those that were made at the time my brother passed away and those at the time of Matthew Barclay. Given that there was such a closeness in ages, it was very difficult for my family to hear those comments, because they just bore such remarkable resemblance to what was said at the time.

Wendy Carlisle: Like what?

Michael Gatenby: That they both died doing what they loved. And I don’t mean to be disrespectful to Matthew’s family—and that does bring you comfort, it is pleasant to think that they died doing what they loved—but the reality of it is, did they have to die at all? And I think that’s what people should be asking.

Wendy Carlisle: In the wake of Saxon Bird and Robert Gatenby’s deaths, Surf Life Saving had conducted two separate inquiries. There had been a coronial into the death of Saxon Bird and out of all that, extra sets of eyes on the beach watching the competitors, safety officers, had been created. And this year, for the first time, an elite group of ironmen had been convened to form a rescue group in the event of someone going missing. Their job was to hit the water fast and conduct a controlled search to locate any competitor lost under the waves. Former champion ironman, Phil Clayton, head coach from Kurrawa, led that group.

Phil Clayton: We met on the Wednesday morning at 6am on the top balcony of Kurrawa Surf Club. We discussed the procedures, the protocols, what the rash vests, the groups, who’d be doing what, where we’d be doing it, what the call sign was and when to go. And we went through everything.

Wendy Carlisle: As Phil Clayton and I huddled beneath an umbrella at Kurrawa Beach, he told me the story.

Phil Clayton: When I finished the meeting, I actually stood up and said, ‘Thank you very much for turning up. I hope we don’t have to action this team ever in my lifetime.’

Wendy Carlisle: On the day Matthew Barclay drowned, carnival officials had suspended a number of other events because of the dangerous surf. They were the women’s double ski and the under-17s single ski events for men and women. The boat events had also been shifted to a lake. But in the under-15 arena, where Matthew Barclay was racing, Phil Clayton says conditions were safe.

Phil Clayton: It wasn’t too bad. A lot of people are saying the surf was out of control and that we shouldn’t have raced. Everybody that made the decision to go in the water knew that there was a little bit of risk, but that comes with our job.

Wendy Carlisle: But I suppose the question people are asking is: if women’s surf ski events were suspended, other surf events were suspended, the boats were suspended, what about the little kids? Why send them out into that?

Phil Clayton: I don’t think it’s why send them out there; I think every competitor at this carnival gets the option to go out. Me as head coach, I walk down and I say to my crew, ‘If you’re not comfortable with the conditions and you’re not completely, 100 per cent positive that you’re going to be safe out there, well then don’t race, and I have no issues with that.’ I think every single coach in Australia does exactly the same.

It’s a very tough question. You can sit here and debate about that forever. But as a kid you want to race in conditions like that. We’re about surf lifesaving. We’re about getting out in the tough conditions to save lives. Now these kids are out there proving their worth and being challenged in the whole scenario; that’s what the sport’s about.

Wendy Carlisle: It’s now up to the police and the coroner to investigate the death of Matthew Barclay and find out what happened. Midget Farrelly was the inaugural world surfing champion, in 1964. He’s a living legend in the surf world and he knows Australia’s beaches like the back of his hand. As a veteran, he now competes in surf rowing events as the sweep at the rear of the boat and he coaches many junior crews.

On the day Matthew Barclay was killed, Midget was sitting on the balcony of his 25th-floor apartment in the Oasis, right behind the competition arena. He was there because his rowing events had been shifted to a lake and Midget’s team had decided not to compete. So he was spending his time watching the competition and from what he could see, the surf in the under-15s arena was dangerous. And if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have let them compete.

Midget Farrelly: Because I would have known that at least half the competitors weren’t up to it. And the conditions were such that I would have got competitors together and said, ‘Guys, this is what’s happening out there. We don’t have to do this. We’ve got a backup beach to go to.’ You know, I look at this ocean and say, ‘Well, you know, I could lose one of you, maybe two of you with bad luck. We can go somewhere else where I don’t have to lose anybody.’ And it isn’t worth dying for a little piece of metal on a ribbon, no matter what they say.

Wendy Carlisle: The day before Matthew Barclay’s death, a 16-year-old girl nearly drowned when a rope from a loose buoy got tangled around her neck.

Marc Manion: The day before, we had another incident that fortunately didn’t end with the same tragic circumstances as Matty.

Wendy Carlisle: That’s Marc Manion, president of the Manly Surf Club, one of the oldest in the country. None of the safety crews on jet skis or IRBs—inflatable rescue boats—or patrol officers on the beach had seen her struggling.

Marc Manion: The conditions were very, very rough; the conditions were changing. The race began and our competitor as she went to come around the buoys got entangled in the rope from one of the buoys. She also had with her her racing gear as well. The rope got trapped around her neck, she tried to come up for some air, she came up, tried to signal for some assistance, no one saw her. Fortunately on the second time she went under she managed to untangle herself from the tube and also from the rope.

Marc Manion: We don’t know yet. That’s the key thing that everybody’s trying to find out at the moment.

Wendy Carlisle: Manly Surf Club has made an official complaint to Surf Life Saving Australia.

Marc Manion: She then, the next day, had severe bruising to her neck and her throat area, went up to the hospital, the doctors there were amazed that the competition was still going on. One of them made yet another famous comment that someone’s going to die on the beach.

Wendy Carlisle: From where Midget Farrelly was watching, high up on the 25th floor, the surf looked deceptively safe.

Midget Farrelly: It was a wind swell and it was a southeast trade swell and very relentless. And relentless in the sense that the interval between waves was extremely short, so whether you’re swimming or paddling you’re in constant rise and fall motion, because there are no lulls in a wind swell of that type. You don’t get a break to get out in, or a break to get back in with. And because there were rogue waves breaking outside every now and then, the conditions were very unpredictable.

But if you looked at it from the beach, in the morning when the wind was offshore it actually looked quite pretty. And the waves had fluffy tops, but as soon as they broke you could see sand blowing up behind them.

Wendy Carlisle: It might have looked pretty, but the sand blowing up behind the dumping waves told a different story. Competitors in the masters were having a terrible time.

Midget Farrelly: The masters from Palm Beach, who ski paddle an area north of where they lost the young man, they were getting cleaned up by waves breaking outside nearly to the turn cans. So the conditions for the masters were Russian roulette. As much as a competitor loves tough conditions, you know there’s a price to be paid for that.

Wendy Carlisle: By mid-afternoon, Midget Farrelly noticed that the sandbanks in the under-15 arena had become dangerously shallow.

Midget Farrelly: When I saw people standing on that bank mid-afternoon, on or about the time Matt disappeared, I noticed that they were standing in knee-deep water on the shore side of the bank. And I thought, ‘Wow. That bank has gone really, really shallow,’ because you wouldn’t expect to stand out in the ocean on a sandbank, but they were.

Wendy Carlisle: Background Briefing has been told by officials that at least twice in the hours before Matthew Barclay’s race, the area referee had warned that a number of safety officials believed the surf was too dangerous, but the competition continued. At around 3.20 the gun went off and the under-15s were sent into the surf.

Phil Clayton: All of a sudden we heard ‘Rescue, rescue, rescue’ and then the beach flags were dropped. And in our meeting that I’ve talked about, prior to, on that morning, we were told if heard ‘Rescue, rescue, rescue’ three times that we were to assemble. We were also told that what area the person that was going to be missing would be in that a big predominant flag would go up whatever that area was.

So straightaway we all stood up, looked at each other, we turned around to the right and we saw the flag go up instantly—so there was no mucking around, it was all prepared. Straightaway we all, as a group, ran straight down there. And I mean, out of the guys that I selected, I think eight of them are elite athletes and the other two guys are young guys that are coming up that are actually probably fitter than all of us.

And we started running down and we ran quite fast—we got down there very quick. I mean it didn’t take us long…

Wendy Carlisle: How long? How long?

Phil Clayton: I think it would have been two minutes max. I mean we ran probably from here… it would have been about a 600-metre run, maybe a bit further.

Wendy Carlisle: Phil Clayton and the Shallow Water Rescue Group ran as fast as they could up the beach, but by the time they got into the water they were up against it.

Phil Clayton: You can see you’ve got your big green rip down one end; you’ve got another massive rip up here to the right-hand side: very similar to the Australian titles.

Wendy Carlisle: So the rip must have been going very fast then?

Phil Clayton: Most definitely. The underwater current was going very quick. Not only that. There was plenty of whitewash, so it’s very hard to visually see anything under the water. As much as you try, even when it’s three feet, I mean whitewash is thick and it’s strong and it’s very hard to visually see through it. Every single person had goggles on and we followed procedure and it was just really hard.

Wendy Carlisle: From the 25th floor, Midget Farrelly could see the rescue swing into gear.

Midget Farrelly: I must have been watching when Matthew went missing, because suddenly people were running… after I’d been watching for a while, people were running and jet skis are turning up and IRBs are turning up and you can see there’s a major operation about to get underway. And sure enough it did. Jet skis and IRBs in the gutter and outside the bank. And when I saw where the focus was initially, on that particular bank, I thought, ‘Well, that bank has finally made someone pay the price.’

Wendy Carlisle: The bank Midget Farrelly was worried about was treacherous.

Midget Farrelly: If he was travelling underwater, northwards on that bank—and remember it runs forever—they weren’t going to find him.

Wendy Carlisle: Matthew Barclay was lost for 18 hours. He was found next morning, 2 km up the beach. It was all too much for the parents of Saxon Bird, who’d died at the championships two years before. Dana and Phil Bird fronted breakfast television, desperately angry and upset.

Dana Bird (archival): Anyone who says it’s a freak accident—it’s not. It’s an accident waiting to happen because of the conditions that they’re putting these competitors in.

Wendy Carlisle: Their son had died in very rough surf. It was cyclone-affected. The subsequent coronial inquiry found that nobody was responsible for his death, but it recommended flotation and buoyancy devices be investigated. Out of Saxon Bird’s death, Phil Clayton’s rescue group had been formed. But they were already behind the eight ball. When Matthew Barclay disappeared in the surf, they were 600 metres down the beach and they lost precious minutes just getting to the scene. It was time they didn’t have.

Phil Clayton: That’s what we were there to do—rescue a person—and we tried our utmost to do that and unfortunately we didn’t succeed.

Wendy Carlisle: Because the question I’ve got in my mind is, by then you’ve got at least three, possibly four minutes have lapsed, somebody’s disappeared—at that point, it’s almost a body recovery operation, isn’t it?

Phil Clayton: Ah, yeah and no. I mean there always is that outside chance that you could find them. And the one thing that was going through my mind the whole time—I was hoping that he was over the road having something to eat. I was thinking of every scenario, the fact that he actually wasn’t out there. So there’s a lot of different things you take into your mind and whether it is a body recovery or not…

Wendy Carlisle: I’m just thinking about the amount of time that sort of in reality elapsed between when you were alerted to it and when you actually got into the water and started looking for him was possibly past the point when Matthew would have been still alive.

Phil Clayton: Yeah, that could be the scenario, but again, I don’t know how long that time between when he went missing until we got the call, so again I wouldn’t be able to make a judgement on that. But the time that they discovered that he was gone to the time that they called me, I think it was about a three-minute turnaround for us. Whatever it is, the time that it took for them, again I’m not the coroner or the police rescue, so I don’t know the timing of that scenario.

Wendy Carlisle: Phil Clayton’s team had been set up to deal with precisely the scenario that unfolded. The general manager of sport at Surf Life Saving Australia is David Thompson:

David Thompson: The shallow water response group that was briefed were over 2.7 km worth of beach. To have people sitting there just waiting for over a five-day period to enter the water is not practical when there are water safety in the water—being jet skis and IRBs…

Wendy Carlisle: When you said to me it wasn’t practical to have that group in every arena, what did you mean?

David Thompson: Yeah, so to have a group of people, of 30 people, sitting in each arena, just sitting there, first of all they could be sitting there for eight hours a day for five days, sitting there waiting for something to happen…

Wendy Carlisle: Something did happen and they weren’t there.

David Thompson: But they were there. There was people in the water, including the patrol people doing the search until Phil and his team got there.

Wendy Carlisle: The death of Matthew Barclay this year has refocussed attention on the two other deaths. The 1996 carnival had been held in cyclone-affected surf and dozens of competitors had been injured. Robert Gatenby was killed. One newspaper described it as a battlefield.

Commentator (archival): She’s broken… now what do I do? Do I turn round and come back in? Do I give the race up? Her whole season is flashing before her now.

Wendy Carlisle: This commentary is from Channel 9 in 1996. It’s describing the chaos of the ironwomen’s event, in which national champions like Karla Gilbert, Reen Corbett and Sam O’Brien were injured.

Commentator (archival): But Sam, I mean you’ve got to feel sorry for the girl with what she’s going through.

Commentator (archival): This is very emotional television. This is what sport’s all about. We see a lot of highs in sport and you share the moments with the champions. This is a low moment, I tell you now.

Wendy Carlisle: As Carla Gilbert struggled, Samantha O’Brien had to be rescued.

Commentator (archival): I’ll tell you what: she’s one of the gutsiest girls I’ve ever seen pull a surf cap on. For her to get pulled out is just the hardest thing. I feel so sorry for her…

Wendy Carlisle: Reen Corbett was also pulled from the surf.

Reen Corbett (archival): I think my board hit the sand. Like it’s pretty shallow out there to hit the sand, and that’s where my board has snapped and I had to let go and I just got hit back, winded really badly.

Wendy Carlisle: Her board was smashed. She later told the Gold Coast Bulletin it’s not right to send juniors out into these conditions.

Doctors from the Gold Coast hospital had also been expressing concern to carnival organisers about life-threatening injuries, and the local paper duly reported that too. Michael Gatenby had no idea that prior to the ironwomen’s event the competitors had protested about being sent in to compete in such dangerous conditions. As far as he knew, his brother Robert was in good hands.

Michael Gatenby: No idea that there was any sort of protest or in fact any dramas at all. We just thought it was good that he was in the finals, he was very excited, and we really had no idea that there was any danger.

Julie Posetti, AM (archival): Good morning, this is AM. I’m Julie Posetti. We begin today with the weekend’s national surf lifesaving championships, which left 40 injured and a 15-year-old competitor missing, feared drowned.

Journalist (archival): This year at Gold Coast’s Kurrawa Beach, the conditions were treacherous. Apart from numerous injuries, the 3-metre swell saw ironwoman Reen Corbett knocked unconscious and her board snapped in two. The oars of several of the large surfboats were also broken. At 3.15 yesterday afternoon, two surfboats in the under-18 competition collided. A 15-year-old crewman didn’t emerge from the boiling surf.

Wendy Carlisle: After Robert Gatenby disappeared, Surf Life Saving’s then CEO, Scott Dershwin, said he stood by the decision to continue the carnival in conditions affected by Cyclone Betty.

Scott Dershwin (archival): Having been here for the whole time, I’m still confident the correct decision was made by the officials. There was a number of events cancelled. They did constantly monitor things. And given the fact that probably about five thousand to five-and-a-half thousand people have competed here in the last few days, given that fact I think you’ve got to recognise that the number of rescues and the number of injuries have been fairly small in comparison to the total number of competitors who have competed.

Wendy Carlisle: [Michael] Gatenby’s brother was recovered three days later, 12 km up the beach on Wave Break Island. Despite the obvious public interest and the enormous media attention, police didn’t interview any of the ironwomen, or doctors from Gold Coast hospital who’d raised concerns about the serious injuries they were seeing. The only Surf Life Saving official interviewed by police was Surf Life Saving’s Scott Dershwin.

In the death of Robert Gatenby, police concluded there was no criminal negligence by Surf Life Saving officials or any other competitors. His death was ‘an unfortunate situation’ caused by the inherent risks attached to surf lifesaving. The coroner, Peter Webber, said no coronial inquest was necessary. He wrote that he was ‘satisfied that no good purpose will be served by the holding of an inquest for the following reasons: No suspicious circumstances; no good purpose; no person to be charged as a result of death. Parents have requested that no inquest be held.’

Wendy Carlisle: But Robert Gatenby’s mother, Vicky, has told Background Briefing that for the coroner to say that they requested no inquest is an oversimplification. Whilst she wouldn’t agree to a recorded interview, Vicky Gatenby told Background Briefing that coroner Peter Webber called her one day out of the blue. She’d not spoken to him before. Here’s a reading of what she told Background Briefing:

Reading: ‘He basically said we’d been through enough and in his opinion—and these were his exact words, “no good purpose would be served” by holding an inquest.’

Wendy Carlisle: Background Briefing asked her if the family had requested that no inquest be held.

Reading: ‘Well, I said to him, “Based on what you’ve said, if you believe no good will come out of it then I agree.” He basically convinced me.’

Wendy Carlisle: It was only later that Vicky Gatenby discovered that coroner Peter Webber was involved in surf lifesaving. He was the president of the Tugun Surf Club, which had competitors at the championships that Robert was killed in. Tugun is just a few kilometres south of Kurrawa on the Gold Coast.

Reading: ‘If I’d know that, I’m not so sure I would have agreed to no inquest being held. He should have told me of his involvement. But I don’t think that would have made any difference to my husband. He didn’t want an inquest.’

Wendy Carlisle: Manly Surf Club is one of the oldest in Australia. Its president Marc Manion says the coroner in 1996 should have at least disclosed his connection with surf lifesaving.

Marc Manion: Well surf lifesaving is a self-regulating body, isn’t it? We have our own officials, we have our own administration, we have our own members. It could be construed that if someone was a member of surf lifesaving and was also the coroner, then there was some sort of conflict. So it may have been better that he disqualified himself.

Wendy Carlisle: Marc Manion says he doesn’t think enough people were interviewed by the police in 1996.

Marc Manion: If there were incidences of people being injured consistently in that carnival—15, 16, 20, how many there are in the newspaper things—if there were people calling for events to be cancelled, if there were athletes bonding together saying, ‘We think that this race should be postponed,’ then a normal consequence of that would be that the investigation could have been more thorough, again so that the process is seem to have been done properly.

Wendy Carlisle: The current president of Surf Life Saving Queensland is Ralph Devlin. At the time of Robert Gatenby’s death, he was a life member of Surf Life Saving Queensland and a former president of the Maroochydore Surf Club. Background Briefing asked Mr Devlin if he thought it was appropriate for Peter Webber, who was also the president of a surf club, to be conducting the coronial inquiry into Robert Gatenby’s death.

Ralph Devlin: Um, that’s not for me to comment on. Have you spoken to Mr Webber? I think he’s retired. He’s a really nice gentleman. I’m sure he’d answer those questions for you. I can tell you that from my general knowledge he’s a highly respected… was a highly respected judicial officer. He was very pleasant to appear before. I would expect—as I expect every judicial officer—to do their duty fearlessly.

Wendy Carlisle: Coroner Peter Webber has not responded to Background Briefing’s request for an interview. We sought to ask him if he thought it would have been prudent to have disclosed his role within the surf lifesaving movement. We also wanted to know his view about the failure of police to interview the ironwomen or hospital doctors.

When Robert Gatenby was killed, Surf Life Saving promised a full inquiry into the tragedy. Ralph Devlin, a barrister, was invited to be part of the two-person team inquiring into the death of Robert Gatenby. That inquiry did not interview the ironwomen or the doctors either. Mr Devlin insists the inquiry was thorough.

Ralph Devlin: Are you suggesting that back in 1996, myself and Mark Raeburn did not do a professional job?

Wendy Carlisle: No, I’m asking…

Ralph Devlin: Is that what you’re suggesting?

Wendy Carlisle: No, I’m asking you why you didn’t interview…

Ralph Devlin: Because I completely reject the implication of your question. We were volunteers, who interviewed a great many people as I recall, at night and in our own time. We were volunteers and we sent back to SLSA a very strongly worded report, which of course was tendered as an exhibit in the Saxon Bird inquiry.

Wendy Carlisle: Mr Devlin, the list of interviewees does not include any of the ironwomen who complained that they were being sent in to unsafe conditions. In fact the newspaper reports of the time were reporting that those women voted that they did not want to compete, because it was dangerous.

Ralph Devlin: Doing the best we could, doing the best we could, we interviewed people that would tell us about the death of Robert Gatenby. Out of that emerged a whole range of safety issues and we did our professional best to report, without pulling any punches, as to what we found. It’s all very well, 16 years on, to say we should have gone and questioned other people. The fact is we questioned the list of people that we’ve listed in the report. It’s very transparent what we did. If you want to suggest that I did an unprofessional job back then as a volunteer making an independent inquiry, you go ahead and suggest it. I completely refute the implications of your question.

Wendy Carlisle: But the point about my question is that this was an inquiry into the conduct of the championships…

Ralph Devlin: I’d have to refresh my memory as to what the terms of reference were, but out of it came a whole range of recommendations about safety procedures for future carnivals, which were adopted.

Wendy Carlisle: The internal inquiry recommended that safety officers be appointed at future carnivals to act as an extra set of eyes watching over competitors. They found the decision to conduct the boat events at Kurrawa Beach, during which Robert Gatenby was killed, was ‘appropriate in the circumstances.’

Ralph Devlin: I stand by that report.

Wendy Carlisle: You say in the report that it’s clear that there was no pressure to continue the championships at Kurrawa. But when I look at the list of interviewees, I don’t see…

Ralph Devlin: Are we on about 1996 still, are we?

Wendy Carlisle: Yes.

Ralph Devlin: Oh look, can you go to something else? I mean I’ve said to you with the benefit of hindsight we might have had a royal commission, but we did the best we could at that time. We had a hard-hitting internal inquiry. That’s all I can tell you and I stand by the professionalism of it.

Wendy Carlisle: All right. But just if I can ask you more questions, you have come here to answer questions…

Ralph Devlin: yeah, I have, but you’ve gone round and round and round about the female ironwomen, the ironwomen sorry…

Wendy Carlisle: Well, those ironwomen allege that they were told by officials that unless they competed, they’d be disqualified, because Channel 9 was waiting to film. And my question is: why didn’t you interview those women about those statements that they say were made to them, because that goes to the heart of whether or not commercial interests played a part here.

Ralph Devlin: Sixteen years on with the benefit of hindsight we might have interviewed a lot more people. Does that answer your question?

Wendy Carlisle: Surf Life Saving’s inquiry found that there was no pressure exerted on carnival organisers by sponsors or broadcasters. But all these years later, Michael Gatenby is still uncomfortable with what happened.

Michael Gatenby: I think it’s important to have people conducting the inquiry that understand surf lifesaving and understand what goes into making a carnival. My problem is that when you’ve got Surf Life Saving investigating Surf Life Saving, there was no independent person there to make sure that all of the people that should be interviewed were interviewed. There was no one there to at arm’s length conduct an investigation. And I am concerned that there wasn’t that arm’s length investigation conducted.

Wendy Carlisle: He can’t understand why more people weren’t interviewed.

Michael Gatenby: One would have thought that you’d investigate a lot of the competitors. You would have thought that you’d include people like the Gold Coast Hospital doctors who were saying ‘enough’s enough.’ You would have thought that if the ironwomen were saying, ‘We don’t want to compete,’ surely those people should have been approached. Why weren’t you concerned that there were cyclonic conditions? Why did you allow it to continue?

Wendy Carlisle: Over a decade after Robert Gatenby was killed, another cyclone was whipping up a huge swell at Kurrawa. It was the 2010 championships and Jane Humphries had come from Perth to the Gold Coast to defend her national title in the open women’s double ski. She didn’t like what she saw.

Jane Humphries: They were frightening. The surf was big, it was rough, but we were pretty keen to race. We did race, and we actually got out and around the cans pretty well. We were in front by a mile, because no one else could get out, and then we headed back into shore and turned around and we had a monster—absolute monster—set chasing us down. Battled as hard as we could, but we got caught on the second wave. And there’s a photo on the front of the Aussies newspaper of us coming off and the skis pretty much vertical. And I’ve been flung from the rear, which is my position, straight over the top of Ruth into the water. And then it took us about 20 minutes to swim in. We came second in the masters, so that just shows you the conditions. Still took us that long to get in and we ended up coming second. I’m not sure how many crafts ended up finishing in that masters event, but there weren’t many.

In my opinion it was dangerous and that’s the thing with surf life Aussies…

Wendy Carlisle: Why did you compete if it was dangerous?

Jane Humphries: Well, you’ve trained all year. And I guess that was just for masters, and the week got worse, so the conditions got worse. Sort of, that’s at the start of the week and you’re pretty excited about competing. We had a title to defend. So you’ve got all those pressures coming in at you, and that’s why, I believe, that you rely on an outside committee to determine whether it’s safe or not.

Wendy Carlisle: Jane Humphries says even the safety craft were in trouble.

Jane Humphries: You also had a reduced number of rescue crafts because they were getting swamped by the surf. The IRBs were getting flipped.

Wendy Carlisle: What about the jet skis?

Jane Humphries: The jet skis were getting swamped. Sometimes they just couldn’t get in to get you or they had people on board. They to me were the real heroes of the whole carnival. I’ve never seen anything like it. They were amazing. The operators were amazing. Their mental fatigue: I don’t know how they coped, but they were absolutely amazing and they did a fantastic job. But when they have a reduced ability to save you because there’s so many people in the water, or the size of the swell…

Wendy Carlisle: But just to get this right, what you’re describing is pretty chaotic scene, where IRBs and jet skis themselves are getting flipped in the swell…

Jane Humphries: Every day. Every day they were getting flipped. And chaos is a fantastic way to describe the whole event that year.

Wendy Carlisle: And would competition cease while that was going on?

Jane Humphries: No. They’d just have a reduced number of boats in the water.

Wendy Carlisle: Jane Humphries says every day the competitors hoped the carnival would be called off.

Jane Humphries: There was talk every morning from Monday. Every morning our committee would go out—sort of club representative would go to the meeting and ask the question, ‘Are we still going to keep competing?’ And the questions were answered constantly saying, ‘Yes, they’ve looked at the weather and they believe it’s safe enough to continue.’

Wendy Carlisle: With officials maintaining the surf was safe, Jane and her double ski partner, Dr Ruth Highman, both of them defending champions, went down to the juniors arena with some advice.

Jane Humphries: Myself and Ruth went and spoke to the junior members in the team and advised them that we believed that it was getting pretty dangerous and that there was no harm in pulling out if they felt fearful, and it was dangerous surf and they wouldn’t be thought of any less if they pulled out.

Wendy Carlisle: This was before Saxon was killed?

Jane Humphries: Yeah, this was before the Friday; this is sort of throughout the week. Yeah, every morning I woke up and thought, ‘God, I can’t believe we’re going to be competing again.’

Wendy Carlisle: On Friday morning, Jane Humphries paddled out for a warm up. It was to prove a turning point.

Jane Humphries: And I actually decided on the Friday, we’d got into the finals in the double ski and we’d got through to the semi-finals in the women’s relay, and we went out for a warm-up Friday morning and I warmed up, came back in, and I actually decided that morning it was too dangerous and I wasn’t going to continue competing.

That was a pretty massive decision to make, because it didn’t just affect me, it affected my teammates. And I had to go back up to the beach and say to them that I wasn’t going to compete, which meant that they then couldn’t compete in that event either. They were really respectful of my decision. I’m pretty pleased about that, obviously there weren’t any more pressures put on me.

But I had got to the stage where it was beyond my capabilities. I wasn’t comfortable. And as soon as you get nervous and you’re not comfortable, then you just endanger yourself even more. So I actually did pull out on that Friday morning, and that was about an hour before Saxon was killed.

Wendy Carlisle: In the meantime, there was also action brewing in the boat arena. A mutiny was underway. The heavy surf was causing havoc for the rowers and dozens were emerging from the surf battered, bruised and shocked. A number were taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries. The rowers wanted carnival organisers to suspend competition. But they were refused. The rowers had other ideas. They would be going on strike. Midget Farrelly was a sweep on one of the striking boats.

Midget Farrelly: We struck on the beach 2010 at Kurrawa because the organisers were trying to force us into competition and we knew it was wrong. Conditions were cyclonic, surf was coming up a metre a day, fisheries had pulled out their shark nets and drum lines in anticipation of losing them during the week in the huge waves. So we knew what we were in for.

Wendy Carlisle: When the whistle blew, the rowers just stood there.

Midget Farrelly: So the whistle blew in each area, no boats went down.

Wendy Carlisle: And you all just stood there, did you?

Midget Farrelly: We did, yeah. And we were all disqualified.

Wendy Carlisle: Who came and disqualified you?

Midget Farrelly: (Laughs) Well, it comes from the top, basically.

Wendy Carlisle: And so it went like this for the next three heats. Every time the whistle blew, the rowers refused to budge. Only then did the carnival organisers compromise.

Midget Farrelly: When the organiser above the referees said, ‘OK, OK, we’ll wipe one area, you’ve got to use the other area,’ so we went, ‘OK, well that’s a bit of a concession.’ The more dangerous of two areas was wiped. But we didn’t get very far in the less dangerous of the two areas, because there were injuries pretty much straightaway. And the first eight, ten was in business again and so they called it off. Enough blood in the water, they’ll call it off.

Wendy Carlisle: The conditions were similar when Saxon Bird lined up to compete in the surf ski. He was the reigning under-19 ironman for New South Wales. During the race, Saxon Bird was struck by an unmanned ski that had been lost by another competitor. His body was lost in the wild surf for nearly an hour.

Newsreader (archival): A Sydney lifesaver dies while competing on the Gold Coast…

Journalist (archival): It’s alleged the teenager’s last words as he dived into the water were, ‘I don’t want to do this.’

Wendy Carlisle: After the death of Saxon Bird, the coroner recommended Surf Life Saving look closely at buoyancy devices, with a view to introducing them. This is something that had been under consideration since the death of Robert Gatenby in 1996. Surf Life Saving has yet to settle on something suitable. Ralph Devlin says a number of devices are currently under consideration.

Ralph Devlin: The complex situation, though, that SLSA faces is that the thousands of athletes that compete often will need to get out of the way of other equipment when they’ve been unseated themselves from their craft. So there can be loose craft. They need to be able to dive under a wave in order to preserve their position; that is, dive deep under a wave and then push off the sand and come back to the surface again until they regain their equilibrium or regain their craft or whatever. So any lifesaver will tell you that this is a complex issue where we wouldn’t want to create unintended consequences for all the conscious athletes that end up in the water in the normal routine competition.

Wendy Carlisle: As president of the Queensland Surf Life Saving Association, Ralph Devlin is the most senior official in Queensland. He’s also from the same club as Matthew Barclay, the Maroochydore Club. He’s also a friend of the Barclay family. Ralph Devlin delivered the eulogy at the memorial service for Matthew during the championships at Kurrawa Beach. The grief was evident.

Ralph Devlin: Matty is a beautiful boy who will be forever in our hearts: a loving son, a brother, a grandson, a great-grandson, and friend to all. His loss is keenly felt throughout the lifesaving community and beyond. To Donna, to Steve, to sister Lauren, and to Matty’s wider family who are here today, we grieve with you. Our only comfort is that he remains with us forever as a beautiful, innocent young man. Matty was the complete lifesaver at only 14 years of age.

Wendy Carlisle: Matthew Barclay’s family issued a press release saying they didn’t blame anyone for their son’s death. A police investigation is currently underway. It will report to the coroner, who will determine if a public inquest is warranted. But now with three deaths at the Aussies in the last 16 years, and all at the same beach, there’s considerable agitation within the surf lifesaving community; some are even calling for a royal commission. Background Briefing asked Ralph Devlin if he thought the three deaths were part of a pattern.

(To Ralph Devlin) Three deaths is a lot of deaths in the last…

Ralph Devlin: What, three deaths in a hundred years?

Wendy Carlisle: Well, three deaths since 1996.

Ralph Devlin: Three deaths since 1915.

Wendy Carlisle: OK. But what I would suggest is, is that suggesting a pattern, that something is wrong in surf lifesaving that you would lose three?

Ralph Devlin: No, it is not. No, it is not.

Wendy Carlisle: It’s not suggesting a pattern?

Ralph Devlin: I can go through the circumstances as I know them of each of those deaths and it involves equipment, that’s for sure. But lifesavers use lifesaving equipment every day of the week, and they have to be skilled in using it. The worst thing that could happen is that Surf Life Saving Australia becomes risk averse and the ability for our members to gain their skills on the equipment, if that is reduced then our effectiveness as a lifesaving organisation will be reduced.

Wendy Carlisle: But if the…

Ralph Devlin: You are asking me questions about competition, but you would have to acknowledge that every year, thousands of lives are saved throughout Australia by dedicated volunteers with the required skills.

Wendy Carlisle: This is a view that is not shared by Michael Gatenby. He now thinks the time has come for a good hard look at the deaths of all three: Matthew Barclay, Saxon Bird, and his brother Robert.

Michael Gatenby: My view is yes, I think the coroner now needs to investigate. And whether the coroner investigates all three matters or simply Matthew Barclay’s matter is a matter for the coroner, but certainly there does seem to be more than just the Kurrawa link that connects the three boys.

Wendy Carlisle: What are the other links?

Michael Gatenby: There seems to have been in respect of at least the most recent event and my brother’s event, there seems to have been advice that it was inappropriate or at least it was challenging circumstances for young boys to go out into the surf, so there’s that nexus between them. There seems to have been a reluctance by officials to move or postpone or cancel the events when told by others that there was these problems. And I think that that needs to be investigated as to whether or not there is this truly independent umpire that’s acting in the best interests of all of the competitors.

Wendy Carlisle: Michael Gatenby says it’s not right to expect younger competitors to make the call about surf conditions.

Michael Gatenby: They’re young boys and they’re never going to turn around in a surf lifesaving carnival and say, ‘I’m not going to compete.’ They’re part of a team and part of a team is going out with your teammates. It’s not fair for 15-year-olds to make the decision that everybody knows they’re not going to make.

Jonathan Green: Michael Gatenby, brother of the late Robert Gatenby, ending Wendy Carlisle’s report on the three young surf lifesavers who lost their lives while competing in the Australian Surf Live Saving championships. Background Briefing’s coordinating producer is Linda McGinness. Research by Anna Whitfeld. Technical production by Louis Mitchell, and the executive producer is Chris Bullock.